


Doors

by somethingnerdythiswaycomes



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Developing Relationship, Everyone Else is Alive, Fake Science, Handcuffs, Kaijus as Humans, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, Yancy Becket's Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingnerdythiswaycomes/pseuds/somethingnerdythiswaycomes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck's dad had always told him 'when one door closes, another one opens,' and 'don't count your chickens before they hatch,' and every other little phrase parents are supposed to say to their kids.  He wondered what his dad would say if he could see him now, handcuffed to a chair with a likely murderer smirking at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Pacific Rim Reverse Big Bang entry, for Tsailanza's LOVELY art prompt! (http://tsailanza.tumblr.com/post/76299847857/busted-by-tsailanza)
> 
> Additional tags in end note, bc spoilers~

Chuck always thought a murderer’s hideout would be a lot dirtier than this.  He watched just as many cop procedurals as everyone else in DC did, probably more than his fellow officers, but whatever; he knew that murderers were supposed to live in dingy little apartments.  They always had a mattress on the floor, water stains down the walls, dirty dishes and clothes piled up all over the place.

This looked nothing like that.  Which, of course, made Chuck think that the murderer he’d been tailing had left him for dead on the street and someone else had kidnapped him and handcuffed him to a chair, but really, what was the chance of that?  No, he was in a murderer’s apartment.  A murderer that had some sort of dinner roasting in the oven, a knitted throw blanket over the back of a sofa, and framed pictures all over green, non-water-stained walls.

And the murderer was standing right in front of him.

Wait.  No, that wasn’t him.  That wasn’t either of the Kaiju he’d encountered last night.  He frowned; the guy seemed familiar, like he’d met him years ago, or had very quickly seen a picture of him, but he couldn’t place him.

Everything in his mind was still foggy and jumbled, like when he’d gotten that concussion in high school, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.  When he opened them again, the guy was holding Chuck’s badge and gnawing on the end of a toothpick.  Which, _shit_ , meant he knew Chuck was a cop.

But he hadn’t let Chuck die in that alley, when Leatherback and Otachi had gotten the jump on him, so maybe being a cop wouldn’t get him killed here.  Tendo was always saying that Chuck needed to be more optimistic.

“Lieutenant Hansen,” the guy said suddenly, making Chuck look up at him warily.  Angrily, still, of course angrily, but he had a self-preservation instinct, no matter what Herc said.

The voice was familiar, which was even weirder.

“How do you know me?” Chuck demanded.  He knew he wasn’t in any state to make demands, and judging from the guy’s low chuckle, he knew it, too.

“Your name’s on the badge,” he replied, flipping open the leather flap and showing Chuck the neat police ID on the inside, his name and signature proudly displayed.

Chuck narrowed his eyes.  “I mean how do we _personally_ know each other.  We’ve met before.”

The guy rubbed the stubble on his jaw, leaning forward a little.

Chuck didn’t lean back, even when the guy’s face was only a few inches from him.

“Think about it for a minute,” he said, chewing the end of his toothpick.

“Or you could just tell me.”

“Or I could just tell you,” the guy agreed, but he didn’t.  Chuck tugged at his handcuffed wrists again, trying to break out of them, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to.  From the feel he could tell they were his own, the standard police issue, and they were built to stand up to a lot more than a weakened lieutenant.  But he really wanted to punch this bastard in the face.  It was something about the slight upturn of his lips, how it didn’t reach his eyes—

His eyes.  Chuck knew those eyes.  He’d seen them staring at him from a witness report file, from a victim background file, from across the table in Interrogation Room 3.

Chuck clicked his tongue. “Raleigh Becket,” he drawled, finally leaning back a little.  Not because he was scared, but to show he _wasn’t_ scared.  Turning the tables.  Moving made a sharp pain shoot through his stomach, and his wince lessened the effect a little, but he figured he made his point.

Raleigh grinned and grabbed the toothpick from his mouth, flicking it into a garbage can. The grin still didn’t reach his eyes.  “You do remember me.”

“Hard to forget,” Chuck replied easily.  “Not many times we see an incident like yours.”

Raleigh’s grin slipped away instantly, his fist clenching on top of the table.  “Incident,” he repeated, over-enunciating the word.  “That the term for it?”

“You and your brother antagonize a guy, he kills your brother, you kill him and then call 911 and try to feed us some story about muggers and gangs.  Yeah, an incident,” Chuck told him, plastering on a smirk.  He knew saying that was a gamble, because there were two opinions on what happened the night Knifehead and Yancy Becket died: Raleigh’s, and the police’s.  Raleigh had sworn he was telling the truth, but the detective Chuck had been questioning him with hadn’t believed him.

Chuck had.  That’s why he still had Yancy’s file in his desk drawer.  It’s why he had files on Knifehead, and Trespasser and Yamarashi, and everything else he thought might relate to the Kaiju.

Raleigh obviously hadn’t forgotten what he had told the police, because he shot forward, fisting the sides of Chuck’s open shirt and shaking him. “You know we didn’t do anything!  We were helping that woman, and just because you can’t find her you say I’m lying!”  Raleigh pressed his face close to Chuck’s again, staring straight into his eyes; Chuck stared back.  “My brother was murdered by the Kaiju for a _reason_ ,” he continued, deathly quiet.  “I’ve been trying to find out why.  I’m _so close_ to getting them.”  Raleigh clenched his eyes shut and, with visible effort, let go of Chuck and stepped back.  He took a deep breath, and when he looked at Chuck again he looked almost… disappointed. “You weren’t helpful five months ago, and you won’t be helpful now.  Stay out of my way, or next time I’ll let you bleed out.”

“I believe you,” Chuck told him, shrugging his shoulders when Raleigh shot him a glare.  “What, you want me to fulfill your vigilante kink and let you fight against me?  I was the only one who fucking believed you when your brother died.”

“Yeah, and that’s why the PPDC are hunting down the Kaiju,” Raleigh retorted, crossing his arms across his chest.

“No, you dumbass,” Chuck hissed.  “It’s why _I’m_ hunting down the Kaiju.”

Raleigh studied him for a moment, and Chuck honestly thought he had gotten through to him.  Then Raleigh threw his head back and laughed.

“You?” Raleigh asked incredulously.  “ _You’re_ hunting the Kaiju?  No offense, but you have a better chance of getting attacked on the street than getting anywhere close to them.”

“I _did_ get attacked on the street,” Chuck retorted.  “So now that that’s done, I can catch those cunts.”

Raleigh laughed again at that, sharper, as if the sound was punched out of him.  “You actually think you can get them?”

“And what’s the other option?” Chuck sneered.  “Leave it to someone like you?  Some vigilante who couldn’t save his own fucking brother?”

In an instant, the indulgent smile on Raleigh’s face disappeared and he had a hand around Chuck’s throat.  Chuck tried to jerk out of his grip, but any movement that might have eventually toppled the chair he was handcuffed to also sent shooting pains through his abdomen. Raleigh tightened his grip and forced Chuck’s head back, so he could lean in and hiss, “It wasn’t my fault.  Knifehead had him pinned, and he’d already gotten me.  _It wasn’t my fault_.”

“I know,” Chuck managed to say, having trouble forming words with his air supply all but cut off.

Raleigh let go just as quickly as he had grabbed hold, stepping back again, letting Chuck sag forward and cough roughly.  Each hacking cough sent another pain through his stomach, making tears spring up in his eyes; Chuck bowed his head, trying to hide his weakness, not wanting to give Raleigh another leg up against him. 

Raleigh clenched his fist by his side, relaxed it, then clenched it again.  “Hunching over’s going to make it worse,” he muttered, pushing on Chuck’s shoulders until his back was flush to the chair’s back.  “Lift your head.  I’ll get you some water.”

Chuck waited until he could hear Raleigh’s bare feet slapping on the tile floor of the kitchen before he looked up.  He coughed again, but it did feel better to have his head up, just like that bastard had said.  He could hear the tap running; Chuck twisted his head to each side to rub his eyes against the edges of his shirt.  The movement hurt, and he wondered how bad his injury actually _was_.  He still couldn’t remember most of what happened, after Leatherback stabbed him and his head hit the cement when he went down.

Raleigh came back with a glass of water, holding it to Chuck’s lips and letting him take a small sip.  It set off another coughing fit, which made Chuck squeeze his eyes shut to keep tears from slipping out.

“I have some advil, if you need it,” Raleigh told him quietly.  “Leatherback got you pretty bad.  Long, no stitches or anything, just blood.”

Chuck grunted.

Raleigh rolled his eyes and settled back against the table, crossing his arms across his sweater-covered chest.  “Look, I saved your life.  Do you really think I want you in pain?”

“Considering you were just choking me, I didn’t think keeping me pain-free is high on your list of priorities,” Chuck rasped.

Raleigh pressed his lips into a thin line, and held the cup to Chuck’s mouth again.  Chuck took a quick sip, before Raleigh took the cup away again.  He didn’t cough this time.

They stared each other down without saying a word.  Raleigh offered the water to Chuck again; he didn’t drink any of it.

“Why are you fighting against me?” Raleigh asked, putting the glass down.  “We have the same enemy, don’t we?”

“You’re my enemy too,” Chuck told him.  “I have files on all the Kaiju members, alive and deceased.  I know how many of them have turned up in the morgue with slit throats.  Coincidentally, just like Knifehead did to your brother.”

Raleigh clenched his jaw.  “You have no proof it was me.”

Chuck grinned, more a barring a teeth than anything.  “I have enough suspicion to bring you in for questioning.  I can hold you for 48 hours without charging you with a single thing.  But I could always add kidnapping to that.”

Raleigh’s fist clenched again.  “You put me away for fucking _kidnapping_ and I don’t tell you anything I know about the Kaiju.”

Chuck scoffed, then tried to hide his wince from the pain it caused.  “I don’t need anything from you.”

Raleigh raised his eyebrows, and nodded.  “All right.  You’ve had eyes on Slattern, Raiju, and Scunner, then?”

Chuck’s mouth dropped open.  “How the _fuck_ did you—”

Raleigh grinned and pushed off of the table, bringing the water glass back into the kitchen.  “I got some intel, which you _obviously_ didn’t, and managed to get a picture of them.  About 3 months ago.”

With an audible snap, Chuck closed his mouth.  He watched as Raleigh dumped the rest of the water in the sink, rinsing the glass and putting it in a drying rack.  Raleigh grabbed a set of pot holders and opened the oven door, pulling a pot roast out and placing it on top of the stove. 

“Fine,” Chuck sighed, defeated.  “ _Fine_ , let’s work together.  We need to catch these bastards.  Nothing else matters, not right now.  Let’s just pool our resources and catch them so I can get back to my normal fucking life.”

Raleigh looked over at him and smiled slightly.  “Good.  We can compare notes while we eat dinner.  I already got your files from your desk.”

“How the _fuck_ —you know what, nevermind, don’t tell me about anything illegal you do,” Chuck groaned, tilting his head back.  “Let’s just fucking go.”


	2. Chapter 2

The pot roast was good, to Chuck’s annoyance.  It would have been better if Raleigh had uncuffed him and allowed him to feed himself, but it still tasted better than the take out that Chuck survived on.  There were even potatoes and broccoli to go with it.

And a stack of papers a foot tall that Raleigh put down next to the pot roast, Chuck’s much smaller pile of neatly labelled manila folders next to it.

“Show me the pictures of Slattern, Raiju, and Scunner first,” Chuck demanded, once Raleigh reached for his paper stack.  “I want proof you’ve had eyes on.”

Raleigh shrugged and pulled out three photos from about half-down the stack, laying them out on the table.  It was dark, and the photos were a touch grainy, but from the designs on the leather jackets it was obviously the leader of the Kaiju and his two second-in-commands.

“Well, fuck me,” Chuck muttered, shaking his head.  “Nothing since you took these pictures?”

Raleigh sighed and put the pictures away again.  “No.  My guy hasn’t heard anything about them.  Not where they are, or what they’re doing, nothing, much less gotten a glimpse of them.”

“Activity overall’s been going down,” Chuck replied, jerking his chin to his files.  “If you look at incident dates for each of the Kaiju members, they’ve been slowing down.  First the higher-leveled members, then going down through the ranks.

Raleigh cursed, rubbing at his scruff of a beard again.  “You’re sure?”

Chuck shot him a withering glare.  “Of course I’m fucking sure.  I sift through all the violent crime reports for descriptions that can match Kaiju, and there’s been less of them.  There’s only newer members still doing anything, and it’s all petty crime.  No bank robbing, no murders, no rapes.  It’s all muggings and holding-up convenience stores.”

“That means they’re prepping for something big,” Raleigh replied, skimming over incident graphs Chuck had made.  “They’re consolidating their manpower, not risking anyone getting caught on something meaningless in the scheme of it.”

Chuck narrowed his eyes.  “How do you know so much about gang procedure?”

“Shouldn’t you know more? You’re in PPDC, aren’t you?”

“I’m in the Partnership Preventing Dynamic Crime, not TARGET,” Chuck retorted.  “We do analytics, and try to keep the next level of criminal from gaining power.  I never had TARGET training.  Kaiju tactics aren’t in PPDC range yet, too much small crime, too predictable.  So _no_ , I don’t know all this shit about gang procedure.”

“I have a guy that used to work with a bunch of the gangs around here,” Raleigh told him, pulling another couple of sheets of paper from his stack.  “He’s helping me, now, after he got burned by the Kaiju.  Literally.”

Chuck winced in sympathy.  “So you tell him whenever something happens and he tells you what it means?”

“Sort of,” Raleigh replied, leaning back in his chair and taking another bite of meat.  He chewed and swallowed, then continued as he held a piece of meat out to Chuck.  “He helps me gather the intel, we do whatever we can with it, and sometimes we pass the info off to his friend at George Washington.”

Chuck frowned and swallowed quickly so he could respond.  “How many people do you have working on this?”  The PPDC had always taught them that more people meant more vulnerability; if you spread your sensitive information around, it was easier for someone working against you to get their hands on it.

“Let’s see,” Raleigh said, starting to tick off his fingers.  “There’s Newt, that’s the gang consultant, and his friend’s Hermann.  Sasha and Aleksis keep an eye out for me, but they’re not really too in on it, and then there’s Mako—”

“Wait,” Chuck interrupted.  “Mako Mori?”

“Yeah, why?”

“District Attorney Pentecost’s adopted daughter Mako Mori?  Working in _Metro Police Narcotics Mako Mori?_ ”

Raleigh smiled, clearly not understanding the gravity of the situation.  “Yeah.  She’s a lifesaver.  And Tendo helps with tech stuff if Newt can’t do it.”

“Tendo Choi?  The fucking PPDC tech specialist?”

“Yeah, I guess?”

Chuck groaned.  “Remember when I said not to tell me about anything illegal you do?  That includes any police employees you have on payroll!”

“Hey!” Raleigh replied, obviously insulted.  “I don’t pay them off to help me.  I didn’t even have to ask most of them.  Once Mako found the file on her parents’ death, she was _sure_ the Kaiju did it.  She wants revenge, and she asked _me_ if she could help.  Newt was the same.  Newt brought Hermann in; they have some connection, I haven’t asked about it.  I asked Sasha and Aleksis for help, but all I did was ask.  They agreed right away.  I asked Tendo for help, we knew each other in school, and he gave it, no questions asked.  That’s the benefit of being nice to people, Chuckles.”

“Fuck you.  Don’t call me that,” Chuck muttered.  Raleigh just smiled benignly.

Chuck rolled his eyes.  “Give me some broccoli.”  Raleigh obliged.

“Are you ever going to uncuff me?” Chuck asked, once he’d swallowed.

“Once I’m sure you won’t try to stab me for ‘kidnapping’ you,” Raleigh replied.  Chuck could hear the quotation marks around “kidnapping.”

“I’m not going to stab you,” Chuck said grudgingly.

Raleigh chuckled.  “That took a lot for you to say, didn’t it.”

Chuck scowled.  “Don’t make me take that back.”

Raleigh shrugged.  “It’s not like you could do anything about it anyway.”

As soon as he was free, Chuck was going to punch him in the face.  It was perfectly acceptable payback for all of this, even if the guy did save his life.  “You can’t just leave me handcuffed to this chair forever.”

“Probably could, actually.”

“I have work!” Chuck replied indignantly.  “And you wouldn’t even have noticed the decrease in activity if it weren’t for _my_ analysis!  And Dad would—”

Raleigh’s eyes lit up in glee as Chuck silently cursed himself.  He hadn’t meant to say _anything_ about Herc, especially anything about him being the unit leader for PPDC.  Everyone in criminal statistics, Chuck’s old unit, thought it was pure nepotism behind Chuck’s quick promotion; Chuck wished he could tell the dumb pricks to go fuck themselves and learn some statistics.

“Does Daddy lead the unit?” Raleigh cooed, scooping some more broccoli onto his fork.  “Is that how Chucky got his fancy job, because dear old Daddy wanted to keep an eye on him?”

“Fuck you,” Chuck hissed, glaring venomously at him.  Raleigh grinned and held up the broccoli to him.  Chuck refused to open his mouth.  It was petty, sure, but Chuck was not above being petty.

Raleigh sighed and dropped the fork on the plate.  “All right, you didn’t get your job because of your dad.  The work you were doing looked like what Hermann was working on, so that _must_ mean it’s high level shit.”

“Of course it is,” Chuck muttered.  “I’m not going to get a degree just to do the same shit anyone learns in high school.”

“Look,” Raleigh replied.  “I don’t want to start this whole working-together thing off on the wrong foot—”

“I think that ship sailed when you handcuffed me to a chair, don’t you?”

Raleigh sighed loudly and rolled his eyes.  “Would you like me to uncuff you?”

“Oh I don’t know, _maybe_ ,” Chuck replied, sarcasm dripping from every word.  “I mean, it might be nice to be able to use my fucking arms!” His voice got progressively louder as he spoke, until he was shouting at Raleigh.  Raleigh looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh in his face or piss his pants.

Under the force of Chuck’s glare, Raleigh decided to do neither, and instead unlocked the handcuffs around Chuck’s wrists.  Chuck pulled his wrists into his lap and rubbed the red marks, still glowering.

“You can tone down the murderous glare now,” Raleigh told him, shoving the handcuffs in a drawer and closing it.

“I need to bring those in to work with me,” Chuck replied.

“Otachi broke my pair when I was saving your ass last night.”

“Must’ve been shitty handcuffs then.”

“Can’t you just get new ones?” Raleigh complained, dropping into his chair.  “Say you handcuffed a girl to your bed and the cuffs got fucked up.”

“First of all, _I work with my dad_.  Second, he knows I wouldn’t sleep with a girl.”

Raleigh raised an eyebrow as Chuck flushed pink.  They looked at each other, Chuck fidgeting in his chair as Raleigh silently stared him down.

“Well?” Chuck snapped.  “I’m waiting for all the gay slurs to start.”

“Not coming from me,” Raleigh replied, sticking a toothpick between his lips and starting to nibble at the end.  Chuck visibly relaxed, but the flush didn’t leave.

“I still need my handcuffs.”

Raleigh rolled his eyes and levered himself out of the chair, going back over to the set of cabinets and pulling the handcuffs out of the drawer.  “Fine,” he replied, dropping them in Chuck’s lap.  “I’ll just have Mako grab me a pair.”

Chuck scowled as he shoved the cuffs into his pocket, wincing at the twinge from the wound in his stomach.  “That’s a misuse of police property.”

“You gonna report me?” Raleigh retorted.  Chuck huffed and didn’t respond.  “Newt’s coming by in 10 minutes and he gets jumpy around cops, so go home.  Change the bandage when you wake up, and don’t let the wound get wet.”

“Fine,” Chuck muttered, stretching his legs subtly before standing up.  “Anything else?”

“Try to get anything else on Kaiju-related crimes you can, going back as far as you can.”

“We only have complete digitized files for the last 5 years,” Chuck warned.  “There’s a unit working on putting in all the backlog, but they’re not that far along.  We have a catalog, but that’s impossible to search through if you don’t have a case number, date, or name.”

Raleigh flipped the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.  “All right.  As much as you can.”

Chuck nodded shortly and started buttoning his shirt, then cursed when he saw the large blood stain on the front.

“Borrow a jacket,” Raleigh told him, jerking his head to the hooks by the front door, where there were a few sweatshirts in varying shades of black.  “And I’d suggest a long sleeve shirt tomorrow.”

Chuck looked down at his wrists, where there was already obvious bruising.  “Dick,” he muttered, grabbing his files from the table.

Raleigh just gave him a small smile.  Chuck went to the door, slipping on one of the over-large sweatshirts and zipping it up enough to cover the blood.  He had opened the door and was halfway out the door when Raleigh called out, “I’m glad you’re helping out.  Your work is brilliant, and so are you.  With you on board, I’m sure we’ll be able to catch them before they do whatever it is they’re planning.”

Chuck paused for a moment, still facing away from Raleigh, not sure how to respond.  So he didn’t, and closed the door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

There was not enough coffee in the world to get Chuck through this work day.  It was the middle of summer, thus _very warm_ in the district, but he’d still had to wear his long-sleeve uniform shirt with the sleeves buttoned at the wrists to keep anyone from seeing his bruises.  And he’d had to come in early to put the files Raleigh had stolen back in place, after being up later than normal going through all of them again.  Now he had to tackle his normal workload, which wasn’t lighter just because his dad headed the unit, no matter what anyone said, _and_ look through the older case files.

He didn’t even know what he was looking for, outside of ‘anything related to the Kaiju,’ but he couldn’t exactly type that into the search bar.  He’d already been through the files with every search he could think of and he already had all the files that had come up.

Someone put their hand on his shoulder, making Chuck jump.

“Don’t do that,” Chuck hissed, turning around to glare up at Herc.

Herc stared back, unimpressed.  He’d survived plenty of Chuck’s glaring through the years.  “Conference room.  Now.”

Chuck rolled his eyes and minimized the file search window, getting up and following Herc to the conference room down the hall.  It was a small room, barely big enough for the three of them and DA Pentecost, when he visits.  There are supposed to be four to a PPDC unit though, the unit leader, analyst, tech specialist, and investigator, and they’ve been out an investigator since Vic Tunari decided the work was too much for him.

Tendo’s already in the room when they get there; Pentecost isn’t, which means it’s an in-house meeting.  Herc glances at his watch and frowns as Chuck takes the chair next to Tendo.

“Heard you and Raleigh had a talk last night,” Tendo says quietly, glancing at Herc as he says it, to make sure he doesn’t hear.

Chuck grunts.

“He means well.”

“Yeah, handcuffing me to a chair, real nice guy.”

Tendo grinned and leaned back in his chair, so the back of it was resting against the wall.  “I said he _meant_ well, not that he wasn’t batshit.  Losing his brother fucked him up a bit, but his heart’s in the right place.  Needs someone to shove reason in his face sometimes.  You guys are a good pair.”

“I’m helping to get files and do analysis for him,” Chuck pointed out.  “Not getting married to him.”

“Well, y’know.”  Tendo shrugged.  “He could’ve gotten any files he needed from me.  I mean, did you think he came in here and got your files himself?  And he’s got Hermann to do analysis work for him.  You’ve got other things on offer besides that, like—”

“If you say anything sex-related I will rip your fucking throat out.”

“Your warm, kind heart.”

Chuck rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.  Herc was still standing by the door, frowning down at his watch.  “Oi, old man!  Everyone’s here, so why aren’t we starting?”

“We’re waiting for our new team member,” Herc replied.  “And don’t call me that.”

“Wait, we’re getting a new investigator?” Chuck asked, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward.  “How come you didn’t say anything.”

“Transfer just got finalized this morning.  Didn’t want to jinx it.  It was a fucking miracle Narcotics even considered letting her go, much less actually doing it,” Herc told him, peeking out into the hallway.  After a moment his frown transformed into a smile.  “Detective-Sergeant Mori, we’re right in here.”

Chuck froze.  “Wait—”

“You can call me Mako, Captain Hansen,” came the reply, just as Mako appeared next to Herc in the doorway.  Chuck stared at her, eyes sweeping over the blue streaks in her hair and the tailored pant suit she was wearing, her badge attached to the front.  She was even wearing _heels_.  Chuck managed to look up at her face just in time for her to look over at him and Tendo.  “Lieutenant Hansen, Mr. Choi.”

Chuck nodded at her, swallowing nervously before replying, “Detective-Sergeant Mori.”

Tendo flashed her a grin.  “Nice to see you.”

She smiled back at him, but her eyes flicked to Chuck as she took her seat.  He looked away from her, quickly.

Herc closed the door to the room and moved over to the screen at the front of the room.  “I know we all know Mako, so we can skip a lot of the introductions.”

Yeah, if by ‘knowing’ Herc meant that Mako and Chuck had played together as children.  Then dated in college and broken up when Chuck figured out he was gay and got into the police academy before she did.

“I stole her from Narcotics,” Herc continued, unaware or uncaring about the maelstrom he’d unleashed.  “With help from Stacks, of course.”

“I wanted to be stolen,” Mako added with a small grin.  Tendo and Herc laughed; Chuck mustered a tight smile.

“Chuck has all the files for our current case, so he can catch you up,” Herc finished, moving back to the door before Chuck could think of anything to say so he wouldn’t have to spend the time with Mako.  “I’ve got a meeting with TARGET about those petty crime patterns Chuck noticed, I’ll be back after lunch.”

“What?” Chuck asked, frowning at him.

“The file you were putting away when I was coming in,” Herc replied, a touch of impatience in his voice that Chuck was too familiar with.  “It was from the inactive cases, so I thought I’d see what it was you’d been looking at.  Brilliant analysis on that one, Chuck.  I sent the basics to TARGET and we’re meeting to discuss it in finer detail.”

Chuck barely managed to stop himself from slamming his head on the table.  It was one of his files on the Kaiju _of course it was_.  “Thanks, Dad.”

Herc nodded, and then he was gone.  There was a moment of complete quiet as Mako, Chuck, and Tendo looked at each other.

“Those were your Kaiju files, weren’t they?” Tendo asked, breaking the silence.

Chuck nodded.

“It was brilliant analysis,” Mako admitted.

“Wait, Raleigh showed them to you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.  She nodded, making Chuck groan.

“He also told me about the handcuffs,” she told him.  “But now, I would like to be shown the PPDC case files.”

“Right,” Chuck muttered, running a hand through his hair.  “Fine, yeah, let’s ignore the complete breach of privacy and ignoring of laws and how I’m the fucking joke of the universe right now.”

He and Mako stood, leaving the conference room and going over to his desk, where he pulled out an inch-thick stack of manila folders that he handed to her.  “There, those are the ones we’re looking at now.”

“You aren’t going to tell me what they are?” She asked, already starting to flip through the top folder.

Chuck sighed heavily.  “Death threat to Hannibal Chau, that one’s a favor for Pentecost, Category 1.  New drug going around that kills people and turns the sclera blue, consulting with Narcotics, so I bet you’ve seen a lot of that info already.  Category 3.  Uncovered a smuggling group with drugs, ingredients for known drugs, and other chemicals and substances with no known drug usage, consulting with Narcotics again.  Category 3.  That’s it.”

Mako bit the inside of her lip; she only did that when she was nervous about asking a question.  “Just spit it out, Mori.”

“The categories?  What do they mean?”

“Right, shit.  I forgot we do it differently.  Categories are how we judge the urgency.  Death threat in the mail to a politician that receives them all the time? Low priority.  We wouldn’t even have the case if Stacker didn’t think there was something unusual about it.  That’s why it’s Category 1, almost like busy work.  Any sort of cold cases or analysis are Cat 1.  Anything that wouldn’t typically be PPDC work, too.  Category 2’s a bit more intense, currently active cases that are isolated events but still warrant our attention.  Category 3 is the highest we’ve gone so far, it’s usually consulting with other units, so that they can get their work done fast as well.  Those are usually patterns or events we think are linked.  Category 4 would theoretically be any mass shootings, sprees, serials, extremely threatening gangs,” here they shared a look. “And Category 5 is the highest we’ve allotted for in the system.  Terrorist-level threats, national security, assassination, or hundreds of lives at risk.”

Mako nodded thoughtfully.  “That seems to be an efficient system.  Much better than Narcotics.”

Chuck shrugged.  “That’s what I thought, too.  Better than the stupid color-alert system they were using before I got here.”

Mako studied him for a moment, then nodded again, more decisively.  “I see why Raleigh wanted so badly to work with you.”

Chuck frowned.  “Work with me?  You mean kidnap me, right?”

She smiled and patted his cheek, like she used to do when she thought he was being adorably oblivious.  “He would not take someone to his apartment if he did not trust them.”

“How could he trust me?  He didn’t even know me!”

“You interviewed him when his brother died,” Mako replied, as if that explained it all.  Which, yeah, it almost did.

Chuck flushed slightly.  “Just go look at the files,” he told her, sitting at his desk and maximizing the file search from earlier.  “Your Narcotics experience will be helpful, just fucking sucks all we’ve got going are drug cases.  My program’ll be done running soon and I’ll send you the results.  We’re expecting lab results at 1.”

“It is nice to be working with you, Chuck,” she said, as she walked over to her desk barely ten feet away from him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, scowling at the empty search bar.

He stared at it for another couple of minutes, then got up to get a coffee.  While he was waiting for the machine, his phone buzzed.  The text ID said the message was from Raleigh, and Chuck scowled; the bastard must have hacked into his phone when he was knocked out.

_Anything yet?_

Chuck huffed and typed out quickly,

_Hold your fucking horses.  Still searching._

The reply came immediately after.

_Hurry up.  Newt thinks we don’t have long._

_I could’ve told you that.  I’m working as fast as I can._

He considered mentioning that Mako transferred to the PPDC, but Mako had probably told him already.  Raleigh obviously had no problem sharing classified information with everyone he knew, so Mako probably wouldn’t keep this from him.

His coffee finished brewing, and he returned to his desk.  The date-checking program he’d had Tendo make had finished running the Narcotics consults, so he quickly read over the results before he emailed them to Mako.

“Wait a minute,” he said to himself, opening up the line graph of incident dates linked to the Kaiju.  “Wait, wait, wait…”  There was a red dotted line marking the start of the decrease in activity, and it was, at most, a week behind the first death from the new blue drug.

Chuck fumbled his phone out his pocket and went to Raleigh’s contact, missing the CALL button on the first attempt and having to press it again.  He held it to his ear as it rang, leg bouncing under his desk.

“What is it?  Foreman’s calling us all back,” Raleigh said by way of greeting.  Chuck didn’t even care that he was annoyed.

“Kaiju are involved in drugs,” he said quietly, glancing around the office.  PPDC shared floorspace with TARGET, all the cubicles pressed into a large room, and it wouldn’t be good for any TARGET members to hear him talking about the Kaiju.  Lieutenant Wei was oddly territorial about their case.

“Drugs?” Raleigh demanded incredulously.  “They don’t do drugs.  It’s pretty much the only thing we could never tie them to.”

“Maybe that’s on purpose,” Chuck replied, picking at his thumbnail.  “Maybe they used dealers, kept their own members away from eyes for the drugs, so no one could trace it back to them.  But this blue shit’s coming out now, we’re consulting for Narcotics, and the beginning of sales and ODs and deaths match up with the decline in activity.”

Raleigh was quiet for a moment, and Chuck could hear metal screeching behind him.  “You’re sure.”

“I could run some probability tests, if you’re doubtful” Chuck replied after a beat.  “But I’m sure.  It just makes sense, Raleigh.”

“All right,” Raleigh said.  Chuck could hear yelling coming over the phone, then Raleigh cursed quietly.  “All right, I’ve gotta get back to work.  Come over after your shift, all right?  Bring anything you have on this Kaiju blue shit.”

“Got it,” Chuck confirmed, but Raleigh had already hung up.  He scowled at his phone, tossing it on top of a stack of folders on his desk as he brought the program results back up.  He still had to email them to Mako.

And, just because, he didn’t include the Kaiju connection.  Never knew who was monitoring their email communication, after all.  It was not Chuck being petty.  Not at all.


	4. Chapter 4

“How did you even find all of this?” Raleigh asked in awe, sifting through the spread of papers on his table.  There were pages and pages of drug incident forms, OD case files, medical examiner reports and, to top it all off, a thick stack of graphs and charts plotting all of the incidents against each other and Kaiju activity.  Chuck had even color-coded it; he was very proud.

“It’s not that hard when you know what to look for,” Chuck replied from the same chair he’d been handcuffed to the night before.  Raleigh had made a point of keeping it open for him, and Chuck had shot him a glare as he’d sat down.  The glare also nicely covered his wince from the shoot of pain from his side.  When he’d peeled off the bandages to change them, he’d been surprised that the cut was as shallow as it was.  From the pain, he’d expected a deep slash, maybe some stitches, no matter what Raleigh had told him.  But no.  Just a thin, raised line, surrounded by redness.

“We—They did not notice it in Narcotics,” Mako pointed out, but there was an edge of ice to her voice.  She’d figured out that Chuck had kept information from her, then.

“They weren’t looking up shit about the Kaiju for this dick at the same time,” he jerked his chin at Raleigh, who frowned at him. “It’s not an easy connection to make, but if someone else had been in my position, they’d have been able to make it.”

Raleigh frowned even more.  “Why can’t you just accept a compliment?”

“Did we get the chem workup back from the lab yet?” Tendo asked quickly, already setting up his laptop in anticipation of the answer.

“Not before I left,” Chuck replied with a yawn.  “Said they needed more time for it, that it wasn’t like the drugs we’ve got on file.”

“It is not like others,” Mako said, the files on the victims, including autopsy reports and tox screens, in front of her.  “The blue scleras, of course, are most strange. Narcotics have no drugs on file that turn scleras any color.  No reports came in from other cities of drugs like this.  And the toxicology reports are very strange.”

“What’s strange about them?” Raleigh asked, frowning at Chuck for another second before turning to Mako with a smile.

If they were trying to be subtle about the fact that they were fucking, they really, really weren’t.  Raleigh stared at her with that stupid smile on his face as Mako listed all the differences between Kaiju Blue, as they’d started calling the drug, and other drugs that Narcotics had dealt with.

“So if this drug is unlike any other drug we’ve ever seen,” Chuck paraphrased, leaning back in his chair, and wrinkling his nose at the twinge of pain.  “Then have we considered the possibility that it’s not a drug?”

Raleigh blinked at him.  “What else would it be?”

Chuck shrugged.  “No fucking clue.  But it might not be a drug.  If there’s little to no sign of the chemicals that produce or are produced by a high…”

Mako had narrowed her eyes at the papers in her hand.  “It does not make sense for it not to be a drug.  There is nothing connecting the victims, and all were users of other drugs in the past.”

“There’s nothing connecting them besides the fact that they all took drugs made by the Kaiju,” Chuck pointed out.  “They all somehow found Kaiju Blue dealers.  Maybe they were involved with the Kaiju.”

“And the Kaiju were, what, cleaning house?” Raleigh asked.

Chuck pulled out the time-line chart he’d made.  The deaths from Kaiju Blue started a week before the decline in activity.  “Is there a point to all these fucking graphs if you’re not going to look at them?”

Raleigh shot him a quick glare, then started looking over the graph.

“If they’re doing something major, they’d want to clear out anyone they couldn’t trust.  They could have manufactured something that presented as a drug in whatever fucking way it takes to get the body called as an OD, or they made a drug that has such a low amount you should take that they give what looks like an okay amount to them and they OD.  And then we have to think about if its oral, IV, IM, dermal…”

“We need to figure out what the big thing they’re planning is,” Raleigh corrects firmly.  “That’s what’s most important.  Narcotics can deal with the Kaiju Blue, and the deaths have started to decrease, based on your chart.  We have to focus on the end game, and that’s stopping whatever it is they’re up to now.”

Chuck let a sharp laugh slip.  “Are you kidding?  You really think that Kaiju Blue has nothing to do with their big plan?  They bring something new out when they’re starting to decline their activity, and you think it’s just fucking _random_?  Why would they wheel out a new drug, or whatever the fuck that shit is, and new dealers _and_ _all the shit that comes with a drug trade that they hadn’t had before_ while they’re coming up with some end-of-the-world shit?  It’s all related, Ray.”

Raleigh’s jaw tightened.  “My name is Raleigh.”

Chuck slammed a hand on the table, making Tendo jump.  Mako just regarded Chuck and Raleigh cooly.  “Fucking hell, _Rah_ leigh!  Are you listening to anything that I’m saying?!  All of this shit is related!  We can’t just ignore something the Kaiju is doing in favor of whatever we think is their end game!  It doesn’t work like that!  TARGET doesn’t do that, PPDC doesn’t do that, because you don’t catch any criminals who have half a brain that way.”

“We can’t waste our time trying to save some junkies off the street!  There could be hundreds or thousands of lives at stake!” Raleigh shot back, before Mako laid a hand on his arm and he fell silent.

“Chuck is right,” Mako said quietly.  Chuck wondered how much that had taken from her pride to say.  “That is why Narcotics and other units ask the PPDC to consult on cases, because they look at things in a different way.  They—we can make connections that others can’t.  Chuck has been in the PPDC longer than Tendo or I, and he is better at it.  You should listen to his suggestions.”

“But—” Raleigh tried to argue.

“Raleigh,” Chuck interrupted.  “I’m not trying to mess up your plan or anything.  I want to catch the Kaiju before they do whatever they’re planning just as much as you do.  I honestly think that this is a good way to do it.  It’s information we didn’t have before, and that can’t be a bad thing.”

“How could we use this to catch them?” Raleigh demanded, but he dropped down into the chair next to Chuck’s, and Chuck took that for the small victory it was.

“I wouldn’t put it past the Kaiju to have layers and layers between the dealers and Slattern,” Chuck told him.  “Dealers probably don’t even know who they’re working for, maybe never see the suppliers.  But if we can find the dealers, we can find the drops for the drugs, and from there, find the suppliers.  Those’ll have to know they’re working for the Kaiju.  We can also try to trace the chemicals used for it, once we get the breakdown from Tendo.”

“Working on it,” Tendo told them, not looking up from his computer screen.

“Thanks, Tendo,” Chuck replied absently, leaning to the side to look through his bag, then wincing and curling in on himself short of even grabbing the zip of his backpack from a sharp stab of pain in his stomach.

“Hey, you all right?” Raleigh asked, concern lacing his voice in a way that Chuck hadn’t expected.  “That cut still hurts that much?”

“You are injured?” Mako asked, frowning.

“No, I’m just pretending to be in pain,” Chuck replied through gritted teeth.  “Yes, I’m injured, and yes it fucking hurts!”

Raleigh picked up Chuck’s bag and deposited it in his lap, so he wouldn’t have to lean down for it.  “Did you change the bandage like I told you to?”

“Of course,” Chuck replied, rolling his eyes.  “I did everything you told me to.  Now, let’s get back to something that’s _actually_ important.  Take out the three files behind my laptop.”

Raleigh opened the bag and did as told, opening the folders and putting them on the table.

“The first one’s the consult file on Kaiju Blue.  The second’s another Narcotics consult, on some weird supplies coming in with a shipment of ingredients for other drugs.  Third’s a death threat for Hannibal Chau.”

“The mayor?”

“The mayor,” Chuck confirmed.  “He gets tons of them, but Pentecost thought there was something weird about this one.  He has someone screening all of them, and this one warranted PPDC attention.”

Raleigh frowned, looking at the case sheet.  “What was the message?”

“They didn’t release it to us,” Chuck replied.

“Tendo,” Raleigh called, still flipping through the file.

“On it,” came the reply, with even faster typing following.

“So you think this is all related?” Raleigh asked Chuck, reaching for the second Narcotics case file.  “You think the supplies they can’t trace are going into the Kaiju Blue.”  He flipped through the sheets of paper, then frowned.  “There’s no list of what they found.”

“Tendo,” Chuck called out.

“On it.”

“Everything is related,” Chuck told Raleigh.  “That’s one of the first things you learn in the PPDC.  Every organization knows each other, all their work is connected, all their _people_ are connected.  That’s why we haven’t investigated the Kaiju, because they’ve always defied that model.  But now we’re seeing the branching out, the connections.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Chau’s death threat was related, too.”

“Uh, it definitely is,” Tendo said.  “Turns out the DA’s office is easiest to hack.  I got the message and the picture that was sent to him.”

“Are there pictures of the envelope?” Chuck asked, looking up from the case file.

Tendo flicked through a few pages.  “Not in the system.  Message is typed and printed, looks like.  Says ‘We are wiping out the vermin of the city.  You are vermin.  We know where you are and where you will be.  We will find you.’”

“I can see why Pentecost was worried,” Chuck muttered.  Mako hummed her agreement.

“What’s the picture?” Raleigh asked, his brows furrowed.

Tendo swallowed, tension forming in his face that hadn’t been there before.  He turned his computer around so that the three of them could see.

Chuck ground his teeth and tightened his hands into fists.  Raleigh sagged in his chair.  Mako narrowed her eyes.

The picture was of Hannibal Chau, sitting in the living room of his extremely well-secured house.  His eyes had been colored completely blue with ink.

“You were right,” Raleigh said quietly, almost resigned, with a glance to Chuck.  “The supplies have to be part of the Kaiju Blue, too.  It’s all…Fuck!” He shot out of his seat, kicking his chair back so it clattered against the floor.  “Fuck!  How could they do all of this without me noticing?  Five months I’ve been studying their every move, and they slip a brand new drug trade past me!”

“I missed it, too,” Chuck pointed out, his hands still tightly clenched.  “I’ve been investigating them just as long, and I missed everything that you did.”

Raleigh glanced over at him, then crossed his arms and stormed into the kitchen.  Mako followed him immediately.  Chuck could hear them faintly, if he strained, but couldn’t make out any words.

“Any progress on the supply log or the chem makeup?” Chuck asked, running a hand through his hair.  Tendo shook his head, back to typing furiously on his computer.

“Trying to break through the last layer of security,” he muttered.  “They beefed it up since the last time I broke through.  I’m gonna leave a back door for myself this time.”

“Just don’t leave anything that can trace it to you,” Chuck said, reaching for the supply bust file.  “Hate to have to get used to a new tech specialist.”

“More like no one else will work with your attitude,” Tendo replied, but he was grinning.  Chuck rolled his eyes and started reading through the file again, trying to see if he had missed anything.

Chuck went back to the victim files for the Kaiju Blue deaths after a few moments, looking at the names and prior offenses listed for each.  Then he dragged over the files of others killed by the Kaiju, including Yancy.  His dad had always told him that people were the key to any case.

Raleigh and Mako’s talking mixed with Tendo’s quick typing mixed with the tapping of Chuck’s foot, until the voices from the kitchen faded and were replaced with the sounds of ceramic against the counter.

“They better not be fucking in there,” Chuck muttered, turning the page in a file.

Tendo looked up at him, his fingers not slowing at all.  “What?  Mako and Raleigh?”

“Yeah,” Chuck replied, glancing up for a second.  “It’s obvious, innit?”

Tendo laughed loudly, making Chuck jump.  “You think they’re—Rals is going to piss himself when he hears about that!”

“They’re not, then,” Chuck said flatly, going back to his file.

“I don’t think Raleigh would be opposed,” Tendo mused, looking back at his screen.  “Seeing as he bats for both sides, if you know what I mean.  But Mako is pretty firmly on the women-only side.  They’re just close.”

Chuck grunted, wanting to leave that conversation behind.  Luckily, Mako and Raleigh came out of the kitchen just then, two cups of coffee each.  Mako put a mug down next to Tendo’s computer, who started to spout effusive praise for her.  Raleigh held out a mug to Chuck, who took it after only a moment of hesitation.

“At least you’re letting me use my own hands this time,” he muttered.

Raleigh smiled softly.  “Aren’t I nice?”

Chuck just snorted and went back to his file.  Raleigh pulled his chair closer, so their legs were almost pressed together, peeking at the file in Chuck’s hands.  “What’re you looking at?”

“Victim files,” Chuck replied, taking a sip of his coffee.  “All of them that we could link to the Kaiju in any way, at least.”

Raleigh nodded.  “And before you leave, I want to check the cut again.  Make sure it’s healing all right.”

“Fine,” Chuck agreed, passing another file to Raleigh.  Raleigh took it, but didn’t move away from Chuck.

“Got the shipment results!” Tendo crowed a minute later, making Chuck jump again.  He luckily didn’t spill his coffee, but he glared at Tendo anyway.  “And the chem breakdown!  A lot of the ingredients they couldn’t link to other drugs match, unsurprisingly.”

“Which are they?”

“Aconite and toxin CfTX-2.”

“Poisons,” Chuck replied needlessly.  “They’re making a poison.”

“The chem breakdown also found tobacco and a lot of the other ingredients they put in cigarettes,” Tendo said, scrolling through the report.  “Did that show up on the tox report?”

Chuck flipped to one of toxicologies.  “They marked it, but didn’t flag it.  Assumed the junkie was a smoker, too.”

Mako shook her head.  “If he was doing hard drugs he would not be smoking cigarettes as well, especially as a dealer.  It ruins their reputation.”

Raleigh nodded.  “So the Kaiju use cigarettes as a base for the drug, then add in all their poisonous shit.  Keeps it under the radar, because if anyone sees it, it looks like a cig.”

Chuck frowned.  “It doesn’t make sense.”

Raleigh sighed.  “What doesn’t?”

“Why add poison to it and then sell it as a drug?  Word would get out as people died, people would stop buying.”

“Test runs,” Mako said suddenly.

Raleigh perked up.  “Yes!  They’re testing it, refining it, making sure it has the effect they want!  Obviously the blue sclera are intentional, so they wanted to make sure that would work before they used it on Chau!”

“There were a couple other chemicals in the breakdown,” Tendo added.  “Can’t pronounce them, super long chemical names, but they’re marked as catalysts.”

“To speed up the reaction, speeding up the death,” Mako said quickly.

“So now we just have to stop anyone from giving a cigarette to Chau,” Chuck said, scrubbing a hand over his face.  “Well, it’s progress.”

“Thanks to you,” Raleigh said quietly, slinging an arm over Chuck’s shoulders.  Chuck blushed.

“What’re you talking about?” he blurted out.

Raleigh just squeezed his shoulder.  “Come on, let’s check out your cut.”

Chuck nodded, putting his files on the table and pushing himself out of the chair.  With a glance at Tendo and Mako, Raleigh led Chuck to his bedroom.

It was a pretty plain room, with an abundance of photographs, just like the main room.

“Unbutton your shirt and lie down,” Raleigh ordered, going into the bathroom as Chuck did as he was told.  He came back out with a basket of medical supplies, setting it on the bed next to Chuck’s hip.

Carefully, he peeled the bandages off, Chuck biting his lip on a whine as he did.  Raleigh frowned, poking at the red skin around with the cut with a Q tip.

“Was it red like this this morning?” Raleigh asked.

“Yes,” Chuck replied through gritted teeth.

“Doesn’t look infected though,” Raleigh muttered, reaching into his basket.  “I’m going to put some hydrogen peroxide on it just in case.  It looks to be healing all right, just… oddly.”

“Seen a lot of knife slashes to the stomach?”

“More than my fair share,” Raleigh said, soaking a gauze pad in hydrogen peroxide and then pressing it to the wound.  Chuck let out a whimper, then slapped his hand over his mouth to keep anything else from coming out.

After a few seconds the pad came off, and Raleigh sighed.  “Well, that’s all I can do.  If it’s not better over the weekend, I’d say go to a doctor.”

“You mean my friendly neighborhood vigilante shouldn’t be my medical advisor?” Chuck asked, his breathing a little heavy.

Raleigh chuckled, starting to expertly bandage Chuck’s stomach.  “That’s what real doctors are for.  I’m just a construction worker with a vendetta.”

“We’ll be saving a lot of people, though,” Chuck told him.  “We couldn’t do it without you.  You shouldn’t devalue yourself like that.”

Raleigh looked up at him, his smile softening.  “You should take your own advice.”

Chuck flushed and didn’t respond.

Raleigh pat him on the leg.  “Come on, let’s get back to work before Mistress Mako comes to get us.”  Chuck laughed as he sat up and buttoned his shirt, then followed Raleigh out the door.  Raleigh shut the bedroom door behind them.


	5. Chapter 5

An hour after he got to work in the morning, Chuck was already eyeing the stack of paperwork to the side and wondering how comfortable a pillow it would make.

Tendo had had to leave soon after getting the shipment list and chemical breakdown, to go home to his wife.  Mako had begged off not long after in order to play catch up with the PPDC Investigating Prodecures manual.  Which left Chuck and Raleigh, bent over the table with too many files and too many mugs of coffee until 4 in the morning.

It was 9 now, and Chuck felt worse than he remembered any hangover being.

“Chuck!” Herc called from inside his office. Chuck sat straight up in his chair, whipping around to look over to his dad’s office.  He wasn’t standing in the door, which means it wasn’t a reprimand for almost falling asleep.  “Get in here!  Now!”

No, it was much worse than that.  Chuck hadn’t even been worth Herc coming to get him.

Chuck swallowed, levering himself out of his chair with only a small wince, and walked slowly to Herc’s office.  Maybe if he walked slowly, Herc would forget whatever he was mad about by the time Chuck got there.  He was getting old; it could happen.

He stopped in the doorway.  Herc was behind his desk, slouched over it in a way that he normally didn’t allow.

“Is something wrong?” Chuck asked, wondering if this was related to work at all.

“Close the door.”

Well, apparently it was.

Chuck closed the door.  Herc gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk, and Chuck sat.

“How’s your work on those two Narcotics consults going?” Herc asked, eyes boring into Chuck’s.

“Fine,” Chuck replied warily.

“Heard you picked up some extra work.”

Oh, _shit_.  Chuck wasn’t supposed to be investigating the Kaiju at all, much less with a revenge-driven vigilante.

Herc must have seen the absolute panic in Chuck’s eyes because he sighed and flipped open a file.  “Security breach last night, for reports related to our cases.  Security breach last week, only thing touched was a file cabinet of unregistered files.  Took a look at them, and they’re all on the Kaiju, information that TARGET didn’t have, with your system ID at the top.”  Chuck swallowed, staring at the wood-paneled front of Herc’s desk.  “I only have one question.  What the _fuck_ is going on?!” Herc absolutely roared the last question, his voice echoing in the small room and making Chuck flinch.

“I knew I could help catch them,” Chuck replied quietly.

“And that’s why you would bring this to TARGET!”

“I tried!” Chuck snapped, looking up at him.  “I brought my graphs and everything to Wei, and he didn’t even look at them before he shoved them back.  He said the Kaiju were their case, and they didn’t need my help.  So I’ve been researching and charting…”

“You’re supposed to come to me,” Herc told him, frustration behind every word.  “The whole point of having a unit leader is coordination, within and _outside of_ the team.  You think Narcotics just hands us consults?  No!  I get access to the bare-bones summary of their cases, and if I think we can help or that we should be involved, we consult with them.  I have to _screen_ consultation requests from other units.  If I knew you’d been working on this, I’d have known we could take on more cases that actually needed our attention!”

“This does need our attention!” Chuck shouted.

“Don’t raise your voice at me!” Herc yelled back, louder than Chuck had been.  Chuck curled in on himself, crossing his arms over his chest.  “If you had evidence that showed it to be a PPDC case, you should have brought it to me immediately!  Maybe you should be reading the Investigating Procedures Manual instead of Mako.”

“I know the proper procedures,” Chuck replied.  “I didn’t have any solid evidence to make it a PPDC case.  I was looking for it, because I had a feeling about them.  I was right, Dad.  I have all this evidence now, we found all this new stuff on them, even more than what was in those files.  We need to investigate them, Dad.  Captain.”

Herc sat back in his chair, arms on the arm rests.  “I shouldn’t listen to this.  If you weren’t such a good analyst, you’d probably be fired for disregarding protocol.”

Chuck snorted.  “You mean if I wasn’t your son.”

“I mean what I said,” Herc replied, then sighed.  “All right.  Show me what you have.”

Chuck nodded and pushed himself out of the chair, only wincing a little bit.  Herc frowned at the wince, but didn’t say anything as Chuck hurried to his desk and grabbed the bag of files he and Raleigh had been working on.

When he hefted the bag on top of Herc’s desk, Herc’s mouth dropped open.  He closed it with a click a moment later, but Chuck was glad he could still surprise his dad.

“You did all of this?” Herc asked, helping Chuck to take the files out of the bag.  “In how much time?”

“I started five months ago,” Chuck answered, still taking files out.  He didn’t look at his dad when he said, “Right after Yancy Becket was murdered.”

Herc frowned.  “Right.  That was a double, right?  Brother survived it.”

“Yeah.  I interviewed the brother, when Homocide was short-staffed and our workload was on a lull.”

Herc nodded.  “Right.”

Chuck looked up at him.  “I have more files in my desk, but they won’t matter if you don’t believe what I have here.”

“Did you do this all yourself?” Herc asked, picking up the top file and flipping through it.

“Most of it,” Chuck replied.  If he was going to come clean about the depth and length of his investigation, he might as well tell Herc was everything.  “A few days ago I found out there was someone else investigating them, and we started working together.”

“Who?” Herc asked absently, still looking through the file.  “Someone from TARGET?  Homicide?”

“Raleigh Becket,” Chuck said, trying to keep his voice from wavering.  “He works construction.”

Chuck could see as Herc processed the information, lifting his head slowly to stare Chuck down.  Chuck held his gaze.

“I must’ve misheard you,” Herc replied icily, “Because I think you just told me that you’ve been giving classified files to someone who isn’t in the Metro PD, much less the PPDC.”

“To be fair, he stole all my files before I voluntarily showed him anything,” Chuck said.  “And he handcuffed me to a chair.”

“Is he threatening you?”

“No,” Chuck replied quickly, putting his hands up.  “No, no threatening.  He saved my life, actually.  And fed me dinner.”

Herc frowned, but went back to the file.  “Fine.  Tell me why I should officially make this a case for us.”

Chuck sucked in a breath, and then let it out quickly.  “Right.  Well, the Kaiju are manufacturing a new drug – we started calling it Kaiju Blue – that’s actually a poison, and they’re going to use it to assassinate Hannibal Chau sometime soon.”

Herc closed the file and settled back in his chair.  “All right, you’ve got my attention.  Now prove it to me.”

Chuck launched into his explanation, pulling out files to show Herc as he talked.  He talked him through the decline in activity, the matchup with the Kaiju Blue deaths, and the connection to the death threat Chau had received.

“We just don’t know when they’re going to try to get him or exactly how they’re going to do it,” Chuck concluded.  “Raleigh’s guess is something public, and I agree.  The blue sclera from the Kaiju Blue is showy, and they would want it to be seen.  And with the death threat out, we think it’ll be the next major event he’s at.  We just don’t know when that event is.”

“Stacker suggested we keep announcements about Chau’s public appearances down,” Herc told him, putting the last file back on top of the stack.  “Next one he’s due for is a gala at the Library of Congress, this Saturday.”

“That’s three days,” Chuck replied with a frown.  “That’s barely enough time to get a plan together, and if we need an antidote to the Kaiju Blue—”

Herc stood up as Chuck was talking and walked around the desk, putting a hand on Chuck’s shoulder.  Chuck froze, looking over at him.  “PPDC’s taking on the Kaiju, Chuck.  I can worry about getting the lab on an antidote, and I’ll brief Mako and Tendo on the case.”

“Actually, Mako and Tendo already know,” Chuck told him.  “They were working with Raleigh before I was.”

Herc sighed and rolled his eyes up.  “Of course they were.  All right, I’ll contact the lab, then.  Bring all the files into the conference room, even the ones you have in your desk, and let Raleigh know I want a joint meeting with his team tomorrow.  We’ll put him on file as consulting on this case, him and whoever else is working with him, try to make the whole thing as legal as we can.”

Chuck nodded, and started to shove files back into the bag.  “Right.”

Herc stopped him, then pulled him into a tight hug.  Chuck froze for a moment, before hugging him back, hands clenched in the back of his white uniform shirt.

“I’m so proud of you, son,” Herc said, after they’d been hugging for a long while.  “You’ve done so well.  I’m so, _so_ proud.”

“Anyone could have done it,” Chuck muttered into Herc’s shoulder.  “All they needed was all the information.”

“You’re forgetting that I was a PPDC analyst before you were,” Herc replied, pulling back but not completely letting go of Chuck.  “This many loose ends, the deviations in activity, the victim links… Not just anyone could have done this.”

“Mako, Tendo, and Raleigh did a lot, too.”

Herc chuckled.  “You’ll have to accept recognition for some part of this eventually.”

“I just make graphs,” Chuck said pointedly.  “And sometimes I make connections.  Sometimes I help other people make connections.”

Herc shook his head, but he was still smiling.  “I fought for you to be assigned to the PPDC because of those graphs.”

“I thought it was for my great teamwork.”

Herc laughed, a loud, belly laugh that made Chuck grin.  It had been too long since he’d heard his dad laugh like that.  “Go do your job.  Everything else on hold for now.”

“What Category should I mark these as?” Chuck asked, lifting the bag into his arms.

Herc’s smile turned grim.  “Category 5.  Our first ever.”

Chuck let out a breath slowly, trying to keep himself calm.  “Right.  Okay.”  He turned to leave, but Herc stopped him just as he was reaching for the door handle.

“What about Yancy Becket’s death made you do all this?” Herc asked.

Chuck looked back at him.  “Why did Knifehead go back to kill him?  Yancy and Raleigh didn’t chase him after he let go of the girl he was about to rape.  But he came back anyway, just to get Yancy.  It didn’t make any sense.  No Kaiju member has done it before or since, anywhere in our files.”

Herc nodded slowly.  “Did you figure out why?”

“Not yet.  But I will,” Chuck replied, with as much conviction as he’d ever felt.  He opened the door and went back into the shared office space, leaving the door cracked open behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

It was 11 PM when Chuck found himself at Raleigh’s door.  They hadn’t planned for a meeting tonight, because of the meeting tomorrow at the Metro PD office.  But Chuck hadn’t wanted to bring this information out for the first time in front of everyone, and he didn’t want it to wait.  He hadn’t even bothered to change out of his Metro PD uniform like he normally did.  People around here tended to see the badge and the uniform and either follow him or run away.

He knocked on the door and heard a BANG from inside.  Chuck waited through the various bumps he heard through the door, until finally the door opened.  Raleigh was standing there, sweatpants resting low on his hips and not wearing a shirt.

“I thought you lived in those sweaters,” Chuck blurted out, trying not to stare at his chest.  Or his abs.  Or his arms.  At anything, really.

“Can’t sleep when I’m too warm,” Raleigh grumbled, opening the door wider and stepping back into his apartment so that Chuck could come in.

“You were asleep?”

“I usually go to bed early, when we’re not going over files until dawn,” Raleigh replied, covering a yawn.  “Give me a minute and I’ll be completely awake.”

Chuck nodded, putting his bag down and sitting in what had become his chair after only two visits.  Raleigh sat in the chair next to him and scrubbed a hand over his face.

“All right,” he said after a minute.  “What’s this about?  I thought we were meeting tomorrow.”

“I found some new stuff, and I didn’t want to wait to share it,” Chuck replied, jerking his chin at his bag.  Raleigh opened it, grabbing the two files inside and placing them on the table.  He read the titles on the tabs, frowning when he got to the second one.

“This is my brother’s,” he said, going to open it.  Chuck stopped him with a hand on top of his.

“Raleigh,” Chuck said quietly.  “I started looking into the Kaiju because of some irregularities with your brother’s death.  I couldn’t resolve them, until we got the information about Kaiju Blue.”

Raleigh’s frown deepened.  “What are you talking about?  What did Yance have to do with that?”

Chuck ignored what Raleigh had said.  “It was the only time one of the Kaiju came back to kill someone.  There’s never been another double back, before or after that incident.  So I kept thinking, why did Knifehead double back?”

“Because we stopped him,” Raleigh replied firmly.

“When I interviewed you, you said he focused on Yancy when he was attacking.  He kept going after him, inflicted injuries designed for pain instead of death.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh confirmed, clenching his jaw.  “What are you trying to say, Chuck?”

“Knifehead knew who Yancy was,” Chuck said quietly, not looking at Raleigh.  But he could feel Raleigh’s hand ball into a fist under his hand.

“How?”

“Yancy was studying biochem, right?”

“Yeah, full ride at GW, undergrad and grad covered,” Raleigh replied, his voice wavering.

“So when the Kaiju need to develop a specialized poison, that can be masked as a drug, what are they going to do?  They’ll find someone who can make it for them.  They need someone smart, so they go for a scholarship kid at one of the best biochem schools in the area.  They need to be able to coerce or threaten him into helping, so they go for someone without that much money, someone that would need a scholarship to go to college, and has family that can be used against him.”  He paused, and looked up at Raleigh.  “You.”

Raleigh was grinding his teeth, staring at Chuck with cold fire blazing in his eyes.  “Yancy would never do that,” he hissed, leaning towards Chuck.  “No matter what they threatened him with, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Even if they threatened to kill you?”

Raleigh froze, starting to breath heavier.  “No, he wasn’t helping the Kaiju.  Yancy would never do it.”

Chuck reached over and gripped his shoulder.  “Raleigh, he didn’t do it because he wanted to.  You know your brother, you know he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t feel like he had to.”

“Proof,” Raleigh demanded abruptly.  “Give me proof of it.  I can’t just take your word for it.”

Chuck nodded slightly.  “I have some.”  He passed the other file, the one that wasn’t Yancy’s, to Raleigh.

“What is it?” Raleigh asked, flipping it open.

“Narcotics file.  Looked like tampered cigarettes at the time, but I think it was one of the earlier recipes for Kaiju Blue.  Caught the dealer, asked if he could ID the supplier.  He gave a description, we got a sketch artist to do a sketch.”

Chuck pulled a sheet of paper out of the back of the file, putting it on top.  It was obviously a sketch of Yancy, every detail of his face there in black and white.  Raleigh glanced at a picture next to table, Raleigh and Yancy with their arms around each other’s shoulders, then bowed his head and slumped in his chair.

“The dealer described him as around 6 feet tall, well built, blond hair and blue eyes,” Chuck told him.  Raleigh let go of the file, pressing the hand over his eyes instead.  Chuck kept hold of the file, and didn’t let go of Raleigh’s shoulder, even when it started to shake.

He pretended to ignore the quiet sobs Raleigh let slip, until they started getting louder; that’s when Chuck pulled Raleigh into a hug, the Narcotics file squished between them, the paper digging into both their abdomens.  Raleigh held onto him tightly, burying his face in Chuck’s shoulder.  Chuck held him back just as tightly, ignoring the wet spot soaking into his white uniform shirt.

He also ignored the feeling of Raleigh’s bare skin under his hands, and the feeling of Raleigh pressed tightly against him.  He couldn’t get distracted when they were trying to keep Mayor Chau alive, and right now, all Raleigh needed was comfort.

“I’m not sure if he ever finished the recipe,” Chuck told him, once Raleigh had stopped shaking.  “I’m pretty sure he had something to do with the use of cigarettes, though.  I don’t know how he got out, what made him leave.”

“He would do anything he would have to to get out,” Raleigh replied, muffled by Chuck’s shoulder and shirt.  “He would finish the recipe, I think, but not make it as effective as it could be.  After he got out, I bet they’d have someone else at least look at it.”

Chuck nodded, rubbing his back gently.  “This case was from six and a half months ago.”

“A month and a half before Knifehead killed him.”

“Did anything change in that month and a half?”

“We moved,” Raleigh said, finally pulling away from Chuck and sitting back.  “Here, from a few streets over.  He broke up with his girlfriend.  Started spending more time at home.”

“All at once?”

“No, spread out a bit.  We moved, first.  3 weeks or so before he died.  He broke up with Naomi right after that.  And then he was around more.  I just thought it was because he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore.”

“He knew they were going to come after him.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh replied quietly.  “He knew.”

Chuck sighed softly.  “Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you.  I’ll… see you tomorrow.”  He stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder.  “Do you want me to leave the files here?”

“Do you think you could stay?” Raleigh asked suddenly, looking up at him.

Chuck blinked, staring down at him.  “What?”

“Stay here.  Tonight.  Please.”

Chuck studied him for a second more.  “Why?”

“Yancy and I used to share a bed when one of us had a nightmare or something,” Raleigh told him, looking down at Yancy’s file.  “It’s one of the things I didn’t think I’d miss so much.”

Chuck let out a breath and dropped his bag.  “All right.  I need to borrow pajamas or something, though, because these uniforms are barely comfortable to wear during the day, much less sleep in.”

Raleigh flashed him a soft, grateful smile.  “Sure.  I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable.”

Chuck rolled his eyes.  “I didn’t see that same concern when I was handcuffed to your chair.”

Raleigh laughed quietly, getting up and leading the way to his bedroom.  “At least I bandaged you up.  Yancy would have—”

He cut himself off, his hand on the doorknob, and Chuck was scared that Raleigh would start crying again.

“No, Yancy probably wouldn’t have handcuffed you.  He might’ve tied you down, though,” Raleigh finished, opening the door.

Chuck shook his head.  “You’re the dick in the family, then.”

“I bet you are, too,” Raleigh shot back, digging through a drawer and pulling out a t-shirt and sweatpants.

“My dad has his dick moments,” Chuck replied, starting to take off his uniform.  The steps were automatic at this point: unbuckle the belt, take off the belt, unbutton and unzip the pants, unbutton the shirt…

“Well, I’ll get to meet him tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll mention you said that.”

Chuck shot him a glare.  “Don’t you fucking dare.  He’d skin me alive.”

Raleigh chuckled and handed him the clothes.  “Fine, but you owe me for that.”

Chuck pulled the shirt and sweats on, looking away from Raleigh (and his still uncovered, still magnificent chest) to fold his clothes.  “I don’t owe you.  It’d be like me telling Mako… something that would get her to kill _you_.”

Raleigh laughed.  “No need to get nasty, Chuckles.”

Chuck whipped around to glare at him.  “What the _fuck_ did you just call me?”

“Chuckles?” Raleigh repeated, all fake innocence.

“Don’t you ever call me that again,” Chuck growled, pulling back the quilt on the still-neat side of the bed and climbing in.

“As long as you can remember how to pronounce my name,” Raleigh bartered, flipping off the lights as he climbed into the other side of the bed.

“Deal, _Rah_ leigh,” Chuck replied grudgingly.  “Now go to sleep.  I have to be at work at 9.”

Raleigh shuffled around a bit, before settling again, facing Chuck.  Chuck wound up facing Raleigh, too.  With light from the hall coming in from the open door behind Raleigh, cloaking his face in shadow, Chuck could barely make out the shape of his face, much less any of the details.

“Thank you for staying,” Raleigh said quietly.

“You’re welcome,” Chuck replied, just as softly.

Neither of them said anything else.

Just as Chuck was falling asleep, he thought he felt something pressing against his lips.  But he dropped into a dream a moment after, and he couldn’t be sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TSAILANZA MADE MORE AWESOME ART FOR THIS STORY FOR THE END OF THIS CHAPTER GO LOOK AT IT AND BASK IN THE GLORY (http://tsailanza.tumblr.com/post/76756282358/pillowhugging-by-tsailanza)


	7. Chapter 7

When Chuck came in to the PPDC-TARGET shared office space ten minutes late in yesterday’s uniform, he was just praying that Herc wouldn’t notice.  They had enough things to deal with without Herc thinking Chuck went out and got laid last night.

Chuck really didn’t need that stress, especially on the back of waking up with Raleigh spooned up behind him, arms wrapped around him.

But they had more important things to worry about.  Much more important things to worry about.

He managed to avoid it at first, because Herc was locked up in his office with Pentecost, catching the DA up on what they’d figured out about the case.  Chuck dropped his bag at his desk and went immediately to the coffee maker, cursing softly when he saw Tendo standing in front of it already.

“Hey Tendo,” Chuck said, deciding to bite the bullet.

“Chuck,” Tendo replied tiredly, keeping his eyes on the coffee maker.

“Something happened last night, and I want you to know before it comes up in the meeting,” Chuck said quickly.  Tendo blinked, taking a second to figure out what he was saying.

“Why do I need to know in advance?” He looked over at Chuck, a grin spreading over his face.  “Did you two do it?”

Chuck glowered at him, but he couldn’t stop the dark blush on his cheeks.

Tendo put his hands on his hips, turning to face Chuck.  “You definitely did!  I told Raleigh you had a thing for him!  He thought you’d just reject him, but I know how to read all your signs, Little Hansen!”

“We didn’t do anything,” Chuck hissed, looking hurriedly out at the rest of the room.  No one appeared to be paying attention to them, but he couldn’t be sure.  “I figured out why Knifehead had doubled back for Yancy, and I went to tell Raleigh so he wouldn’t be blindsided if it came up in the meeting.”

“So you two didn’t get it on.”

“ _No_.”

Tendo frowned.  “Why not?”

Chuck opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again.  He pressed his lips together, shifting slightly.  “We have to catch Slattern, Raiju, and Scunner first.”

Tendo’s grin was back, and brighter than before.  “So it’s going to happen?”

“Priorities,” Chuck snapped, elbowing past him as the coffee maker finished brewing, pouring out a cup for each of them.

Mako, of course, walked in right then.  “Is Tendo talking about how you stayed with Raleigh last night?”

“How do both of you know about that?” Chuck asked, and he will deny that there was any whining involved for the rest of his life.

“You’re wearing yesterday’s uniform,” Mako pointed out.  “And Raleigh just came in with your belt.”

Chuck blushed, patting around his waist, and cursing when he didn’t feel his belt.  He rushed out to the PPDC desks, grabbing his belt from Raleigh hands and quickly threading it through his belt loops.

“Mako and Tendo think we fucked,” he hissed, buckling the belt, and glaring at Raleigh.

“I texted you to say you left your belt,” Raleigh replied mildly.  “You didn’t respond.”

Chuck was about to retort, but Herc and Pentecost had emerged from Herc’s office.  Chuck straightened up, smoothing his shirt down.  Raleigh didn’t shift at all, but Chuck could see the tension in his body.

“Wait, aren’t the rest of your people supposed to be here?” Chuck leaned over to hiss in Raleigh’s ear.  Raleigh glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Hermann’s finishing up a class and coming over, Newt’s in the conference room already, and Sasha and Aleksis are on their way.  They hit traffic.”

Chuck nodded shortly.  “Pentecost doesn’t like to wait.”

“Your dad set the time without asking when we could be available, so it’s his own fault.”

That startled a laugh out of Chuck.  “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

Raleigh flashed him a grin. 

“Wait,” Chuck said with a frown.  “Didn’t you say Newt doesn’t like police?”

“I just said that to get rid of you that night,” Raleigh replied, shrugging slightly.  “He’s never been the biggest fan of the police, but he’s not terrified.”

Chuck rolled his eyes.  “Thanks for the honesty, at least.

Raleigh smiled, and changed the subject.  “Looking at Pentecost makes me feel like I should’ve worn a suit.”  Chuck looked him over; he was wearing a navy blue sweater and blue pants, and a pair of boots.

“You look fine,” Chuck told him.  “Pentecost always dresses like that.  So do Tendo and Mako.  The rest of us just have our uniforms.”

Raleigh nodded, then looked past Chuck with a wide smile.  “Aleksis!  Sasha!” he called, going over to the door.  Chuck turned, and his eyes widened when he saw them.  Aleksis was bigger than he thought it was possible for a human to be, bigger than Leatherback had been; Sasha was almost petite next to him, but Chuck was sure she was at least his height.  And she looked like she could definitely kick his ass without messing up her hair or makeup.

Aleksis pulled Raleigh into a hug, lifting him a couple inches off the ground.  Sasha hugged him as well, once Aleksis had let go, and pressed a bright red kiss to his cheek.  Raleigh laughed and rubbed the kiss mark off.

“Aleksis, Sasha, this is Chuck,” Raleigh told him, gesturing back at Chuck.  Chuck nodded at them, his hands jammed in his pockets.

“This is cute math boy,” Sasha said, stalking over to Chuck.  He regarded her warily, not quite sure what to make of that description.  “Raleigh has said much about you.”  She held out a hand with red-painted nails; Chuck shook it.

Aleksis came up behind her, staring down at Chuck, then held out his hand, too.  Chuck shook his hand as well.

“Hermann said he’s outside,” Raleigh leaned around Aleksis to tell Chuck.  “It’ll take him a bit to get through the halls, but he’ll be up here soon.”

Chuck nodded.  “Right.”  He glanced at his watch.  “It’s 9:15, so Dad should be—”

“EVERYONE GET YOUR ASSES IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM!” Herc shouted, hand cupped around his mouth.  Chuck rolled his eyes.

“I’ll let him know Hermann’ll be a little late,” Chuck told Raleigh, earning a quick smile.

Herc was standing outside the conference room door, arms crossed over his chest.

“Is every one of Raleigh’s people here?” Herc asked, eyes sweeping the room, lingering on Aleksis and Sasha.

“Waiting on Hermann,” Chuck replied.  “He’s coming up now.”

Herc nodded shortly.  “We’ll get everyone settled and leave him a seat near the door, so we can start the meeting as soon as he’s here.”

Chuck looked back at Raleigh, then gestured for all of them to come over.  Tendo and Mako, who had been loitering by the coffee machine, filed into the conference room with Sasha, Aleksis, Raleigh, and Chuck.

The room was small to begin with, its beige walls pressing in on them and the circular table in the middle.  Now there were going to be more than twice as many people.  Tendo had dragged all their office chairs, minus Herc’s, into the room, and stolen two from the waiting area in the TARGET section.

Chuck wound up squished between the back wall and the table, Raleigh on one side and someone he didn’t know, who then had to be Newt, on the other.  For a gang consultant, Newt hadn’t been what he was expecting.

Newt’s sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing the hundred or so cigarette burns dotting his arms.  Around each burn, a word had been tattoed; the few that Chuck could read, he could tell were the names of Kaiju members.

Chuck looked away as soon as he realized, but Newt had still caught him staring.  He had a shaky grin plastered on, and a popped blood vessel in his left eye.  “It’s so I know who to blame for each burn,” Newt told him, tapping one of the burn-tattoo pairs.  “Did the same thing for the bigger ones on my back.”

“We’ll get them,” Chuck told him.  Newt laughed and slung an arm over his shoulder.

“I like you!” he exclaimed.  “Raleigh, I like him!  We should keep him!”

“I’ll do my best,” Raleigh told Newt, but he was looking at Chuck when he said it.  Chuck looked away quickly.  Conveniently, Hermann had entered the room just as Chuck needed the distraction.

“Hermann!” Newt exclaimed, trying to reach across the table to hug him.  “I haven’t seen you in forever, buddy!”

“It’s _Dr. Gottlieb_ , Dr. Geiszler!” Hermann spat, dropping into his chair and skillfully avoiding Newt’s arms.  “Now sit down, you’re making a fool of yourself!”

Newt pouted, but sat down as told.

With everyone accounted for, Herc closed the conference room door and took the one empty seat, between Hermann and Raleigh.  Chuck glanced around the table; Mako had been lucky enough to get a seat between Pentecost and Sasha, which meant she wouldn’t be squished or hit in the head by flailing limbs.  As Chuck dodged Newt’s elbow, he grew even more envious.

“Now,” Herc said loudly, bringing them all to order.  “Everyone knows why we’re here, right?”

“I don’t,” Hermann replied.  “I was told to show up because my presence was required.”

Raleigh leaned around Chuck so he could jab Newt in the shoulder with an index finger.  “You were supposed to fill him in!”

“I forgot!” Newt wailed, holding his hands up in defense.

“How can you forget—”

“Becket,” Pentecost said, his voice quiet but laced with authority.  Raleigh fell silent immediately, but he still looked dissatisfied.  “Dr. Gottlieb, we have reason to believe that the Kaiju are going to attempt to assassinate Mayor Chau this Saturday while he attends a gala event at the Portrait Gallery.”

Hermann raised an eyebrow.  “Not from any information Mr. Becket brought to me.  I’ve been doing data and risk analysis for him, I would have—”

“I figured it out,” Chuck interrupted.  Hermann turned a sneer on him.  “I’m the PPDC analyst, and I was investigating the Kaiju on my own before Raleigh saved me from Otachi and Leatherback.  I did all the analysis that led to the conclusion.”

“I promised I wouldn’t involve you if I didn’t need you,” Raleigh reminded Hermann.  “You wanted to be as hands-off as possible.”

Hermann nodded and leaned back in his chair.  “Fine.  I accept your hypothesis of this assassination.  Is there a plan to prevent Mayor Chau’s imminent demise?”

“‘Imminent demise?’” Mako asked, looking over at Hermann.

He smiled wanly at her.  “Miss. Mori—”

“Detective Sergeant,” she corrected neutrally.

Hermann’s smile dropped.  “Detective Sergeant Mori, the Kaiju do not fail.  If they set out to kill Hannibal Chau, and have put in enough effort that this amount of people is necessary in the _planning_ phase, then there is little we can do to stop it.”

“We will stop it,” Mako replied, and looked away, ending their conversation.

“We’ve got Metro PD behind us,” Tendo added.  “And Chau’s private security and the security for the gala will cooperate.”

Herc waved a hand to the Kaidanovskys.  “You want to weigh in, too?”

Sasha shrugged.  “We break things for Becket.  Don’t care about planning.”  Aleksis nodded his agreement.

Herc sighed and shuffled through a couple of papers in front of him.  “Right.”

“Does Chau smoke?” Chuck asked Pentecost, figuring he would be the most likely to know.

“No,” Pentecost replied.

“So they can’t deliver the poison through a cigarette,” Chuck concluded, looking back to Herc.  “Should we start with trying to figure out how they’ll get the Kaiju Blue to him?”

Herc nodded, standing up and going over to the whiteboard against one wall, having to squeeze past Hermann to get to it.  “Good idea, Chuck.”

“We didn’t figure out what turns the sclera blue, did we?” Mako asked, her hands folded in her lap, the lines of her pantsuit as crisp as ever.

“Oh, that?” Newt asked.  “That’s the catalysts mixing with the cigarette mixture.”

Raleigh raised an eyebrow.  “You’re sure?”

Hermann scoffed.  “This imbecile has a masters in genetic engineering and analytical chemistry.”

Raleigh pressed his lips together, staring intently at Newt, who was obliviously doodling a chemical diagram.  “You didn’t think to mention that when I said we were looking at an engineered poison?”

“I figured you had it covered,” Newt replied with a shrug.  “Anyway, the catalysts are to accelerate the collagen depletion caused by practically everything they put in a cigarette.  Collagen depletion causes the blue sclera.  It’s awesome, really; whoever came up with all of this is a genius!”

“Could you make an antidote?” Herc asked.

“For the blue sclera?  I mean, it’s not deadly or anything…”

“For the Kaiju Blue,” Herc clarified, only the last threads of his patience still holding.

“Oh, yeah!  Easy peasy!  Shouldn’t take me more than three days, tops.”

“You have two,” Pentecost told him.  “It’s Thursday.  The Gala is Saturday.  You will have the rest of today, all of Friday, and some of Saturday.  By the time Mayor Chau is stepping into a car to go to that gala, I want the antidote for the poison in his pocket.”

Newt saluted.  “Yes, sir!”

Herc pointed at Mako.  “You’re with him.  You were in Narcotics, so you’ve got more experience than the rest of us with all this chemical shit.”

Mako nodded firmly.  “Of course.  I won’t let you down.”

“We know you won’t,” Pentecost informed her.

“We still need to figure out how they’re going to poison him,” Chuck said again.  “They’ll want the blue eyes, so all the ingredients from the cigarette need to be there.  Is there something else they could use to get it specifically to him?”

“Aconite and the toxin by themselves would be liquid and colorless,” Newt said, looking through the lab report.  “If they use nicotine in place of tobacco, which would produce the same effect, and put in all the other chemicals from the cigarettes, they’d have a liquefied, colorless poison.”

“That they could put on literally anything and we’d have no idea,” Chuck replied flatly.

“Lab says it would be less effective through dermal administration,” Tendo added.

“The Kaiju would want to be sure he’s dead,” Herc said thoughtfully.  “If inhalation has been working for them, maybe they’d go the same route with him.  The question is how to get him to inhale it.”

“Without getting anyone else to inhale it,” Hermann reminded them.  “The Kaiju are making a statement, and it would be lessened if others died.”

“What about oral administration?” Chuck asked.

“They could have put it on the outside and end of the cigarette,” Raleigh added quickly.  “So it gets in the victim’s mouth, he ingests it, he dies.  But they could just cut out the cigarette, and put it on anything that will go in his mouth.”

“That makes the most sense to me,” Herc said in reply, shrugging.  “We’ve never dealt with a case like this before.  But coating a fork or the rim of a glass in the poison seems like a good way to go.  Only he would ingest it, they could make sure it gets to him…”

“I agree,” Mako stated.

Pentecost nodded.  “Oral administration.  The last bit is the hardest: catching them before they poison him.”

“There’s only a few Kaiju members left right now,” Raleigh replied.  “There’s some low-level ones – they don’t show up on our radar too much – and then Slattern, Scunner, and Raiju.”

“That’s it?” Pentecost asked, looking between Raleigh and Chuck, as if he expected Chuck to argue.

“Knifehead was killed five months ago, Mutavore’s been arrested and pending trial, Otachi and Leatherback were both arrested on Monday.  It’s likely Otachi and Leatherback, possibly Mutavore as well, were going to be the ones doing it, but now that they’re gone… It’s more likely Scunner, Raiju, and Slattern will do it than pass it off to low-ranked members.  After all the work that went into this plan, they won’t want it to fail because of an inexperienced guy going in.”

“So if we catch them, we catch the leader of the Kaiju,” Pentecost repeated.  Chuck nodded.  “Get him alive, if you can.  Scunner and Raiju, too.  We need to dig out every part of their organization.  I don’t want to leave anything behind.”

“Got it,” Chuck replied.

“That means officers do the takedown,” Herc added, looking meaningfully at Sasha and Aleksis.  “We don’t want any doubt about the legality of their arrests.”

“Now that that’s settled,” Pentecost stated, standing up and straightening his already-straight jacket.  “I’ll go update Chau.  No one besides us and him knows the details, and it’s going to stay that way.”  He looked around the table, meeting every one’s gaze.  “I trust Herc will organize duties appropriately.”

“Of course,” Herc replied, shaking Pentecost’s hand on his way out the door.  “Tell Chau I say hi, Stacks.”

Pentecost didn’t reply, but there was a slight upturn to the corners of his lips, and that was good enough.

“All right,” Herc said after a moment.  “Sasha and Aleksis, I want you on perimeter, for now.  We might need to switch you somewhere else, depending on the blind spots left by the gala security.  Dr. Gottlieb—”

“I will not attend this gala,” Hermann replied immediately.  “I have had unfortunate meetings with poisons before, and I do not wish to repeat them.”  He was rubbing his right leg as he spoke, the side he used the cane on, and another few dots connected in Chuck’s mind.  He’d been wondering why Hermann had volunteered to help in the first place, even if only on an as-needed basis.

“Dr. Geiszler, just create the antidote.  Mako, supervise him, and I’d like you at the gala too.  You, Chuck, and Raleigh will blend in with the guests to keep watch for anything suspicious.  Stacker is an invited guest, so he’ll be acting as another set of eyes.  I’ll be part of the protection detail, just in case any of Chau’s security are in with the Kaiju.  Tendo, outside in the van monitoring intra-team communications, as well as anything else electronically in the building.”

It was moments like this that reminded Chuck of why his father had inspired him to become a police officer like him, even if he’d taken a different route to it.

“Is there anything else to discuss?” Herc asked, looking around the room.  “We have a plan for the gala, Dr. Geiszler will work on the antidote, and we have some idea of the delivery method.  Just work on your parts, do as much as we can going in.  Be well-rested for Saturday,” he added, with a pointed look at Chuck and Raleigh.  Chuck glared at him.  “That’s all I have.  Meeting dismissed.”

Herc was the first out of the room, most likely off to requisition lab space and everything else they would need to try to pull this off.

Hermann left after, with nothing else to do for the case.  Sasha and Aleksis were next, both nodding at Raleigh on their way out, probably off to go sharpen their knives or something.  Mako and Newt left together, definitely on their way down to the lab.  Tendo was on their heels, closing the door to the conference room behind him, leaving Raleigh and Chuck sitting pressed together at the table.

“How are you feeling?” Chuck asked, gathering the papers on top of the conference table instead of looking at Raleigh.

“Been better,” Raleigh replied honestly.  “But at least I finally know why it was Yancy.”

Chuck cleared his throat and reached for some papers across the desk, dragging them back other.  Once his hand was close enough, Raleigh put his hand over it.   Chuck paused, staring at their hands on the table.

“It was a lot better with you there,” Raleigh told him quietly.  “I can’t remember sleeping so well since Yancy… died.”

Chuck looked over at him and smiled slightly.  “Good.  We need you fully rested.”

Raleigh studied him, eyes darting over Chuck’s face.  “What about how you need me?”

Chuck flushed.  “I don’t need you.”

Raleigh smiled.  “I know.”  And then he leaned forward and kissed Chuck, a soft press of their lips.  Chuck closed his eyes and kissed him back, their hands still together on top of the files.  Raleigh made a soft noise and moved a little closer, his free hand landing on Chuck’s knee.  Chuck grabbed hold of the front of Raleigh’s sweater, then used the grip to push him back gently.

“We have to stop the Kaiju,” Chuck said immediately, before Raleigh could assume anything.  “No distractions until we’ve got them.”

Raleigh nodded, looking at him seriously.  “They’re the priority.”

“For Yancy,” Chuck replied, making a smile bloom on Raleigh’s face.

“One more kiss for the road?”

Chuck obliged, kissing him softly and then pulling away again.  “I’ve got files to comb through.”

“I’ll take a look, too.  Two brains are better than one.”

“Not when one of them’s yours,” Chuck retorted, standing up.

They left the conference room, leaving the door half-open behind them.


	8. Chapter 8

“Couldn’t they have plotted to kill Chau somewhere I didn’t have to wear a tux?” Raleigh complained, tugging at his collar.

“You can’t wear sweaters everywhere,” Chuck retorted, nudging him with his elbow.  “And be quieter.  We don’t want anyone to overhear you.”

They were milling around the lobby with the other guests, waiters weaving through them with trays of hors d’oeuvres and glasses of champagne.

“I can’t believe they can have something like this in a museum,” Chuck muttered, looking down the hallway that led into the American Portraiture collection.  “Aren’t they afraid of someone spilling something on one of the artworks?”  Chuck tapped his finger against his mostly-full glass of champagne, trying to get his nervous energy out somehow.

Raleigh shrugged.  “Must not be.”  He moved closer, touching Chuck’s elbow lightly.  “And calm down, everything’s gone fine so far.”

“I think we’ve got different definitions of ‘fine,’” Chuck retorted.  “Newt doesn’t have the antidote yet.  That is not, in any way, _fine_.”

“He’s almost done with it,” Raleigh reminded him.  “He even has Hermann helping him now.”

“But what if—”

“Hey, we talked about this before with Pentecost, remember?  No ‘what ifs’.  We just get the job done.”

Chuck let out a breath.  “Right.”

Raleigh took his hand for a moment, squeezing lightly.  “I’m nervous, too.”  Chuck gave him a small smile.

Then Mako appeared on Raleigh’s other side, and Chuck pulled his hand from Raleigh’s.  She was wearing a long, flowing, pale gray dress.  It had a high front and back, and gathered at the waist, then billowed out around her, just barely brushing the floor.

“You look great,” Raleigh told her, kissing her cheek.  She smiled, wider than normal.

“So do you,” she replied, flattening one of the lapels of his jacket.

“Where did you find a dress like that in a day and a half?” Chuck asked incredulously.

Mako looked over at him and blushed slightly.  “I was supposed to accompany DA Pentecost to this event.  I have had this dress for months.”

Chuck offered her a smile.  “You look beautiful.”

She blushed darker.  “Thank you, Chuck.  You look better in a tuxedo than I remember.”

Chuck rolled his eyes.  “Oh, come on!  We were seventeen, no one looks good in a tuxedo then!”

“Why were you wearing a tux?” Raleigh asked, looking over at Chuck.

“Metro PD event,” he muttered.  “Dad was awarded an Achievement Medal, and Lieutenant of the Year.”

“It is almost unheard of to win both the same year,” Mako told Raleigh.  “Herc has always been at the top in Metro PD, which is why he was chosen to lead PPDC when it was formed.”

“And you’re a Lieutenant now?” Raleigh asked, obviously remembering seeing it inscribed on Chuck’s badge when they first met.

“Recently promoted,” Chuck replied, not able to hide his smile.  He’s hoping to be awarded Lieutenant of the Year one year as well, just as Herc was.

Raleigh grinned back.

And then they heard a loud crash.  Chuck whirled around, reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster.  Mako went for the one strapped to her ankle.

“Wait,” Raleigh hissed, peering through the crowd.  “Just a waiter who bumped into someone.”  Chuck relaxed slightly, recognizing the lack of immediate danger, but the threat of it setting him on edge.

“Raleigh!” Mako exclaims.  “The waiter—”

“Scunner,” Raleigh spat, and started shouldering his way through the crowd, Mako and Chuck on his heels.  When they get closer to the waiter, he notices them coming towards him and immediately started running.  Mako and Raleigh sprint after him, and Chuck is about to follow, especially after he sees someone else go running after them that he would guess is Raiju, when he sees his dad sprawled out on the floor.

“Dad?” he asks, kneeling down next to him.  “You all right?”

Herc groaned, holding one arm to his chest and using the other to push himself up.  “Knocked me over… banged my arm on the marble.”

Chuck frowned and went to move Herc’s arm, making him cry out.  He brought his wrist to his mouth, speaking into the microphone there.  “Tendo, dad’s hurt, we need a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” Herc grunted.

“Shut up,” Chuck snapped.  “You’re not fine.  If whoever looks you over says you can stay, you’re sitting down and acting as eyes.”

Herc nodded without any more arguing, which told Chuck more than anything else how much pain his dad was in.

Chuck pat his uninjured shoulder and stood up, glad that no one else had been the in a MPDC uniform.  The Kaiju had somehow gotten wind of the PPDC’s presence, but they only knew to look for those in police uniforms, not in tuxedos and evening gowns.

“Any news from Newt?” Chuck asked quietly, eyes sweeping over the crowd, trying to pick out anyone that was standing out.  Toward the back of the room, there was a man with dreadlocks.  Chuck wouldn’t normally think anything of it, but he kept glancing down the hallway that Mako, Raleigh, Raiju, and Scunner had gone down.  And he kept patting his pocket, as if he had something there that he had to constantly reassure himself was actually there.

“He and Hermann are on their way,” Tendo replied.

“When they get here send them to me or my dad,” Chuck told him.  “Mako and Raleigh are pursuing Raiju and Scunner.  Don’t want Hermann and Newt getting tangled in that.”

“Copied,” Tendo answered curtly.

“Raiju unconscious and handcuffed,” Mako huffed over the comm system a moment later.  “Raleigh still pursuing Scunner, following him now.”

“I’ll send an officer to collect Raiju,” Tendo told her.  “Pursuit of Scunner recognized.”

“Eyes on Slattern,” Chuck said suddenly, more sure than he had been before that the dreadlocked man was the Kaiju leader.  He’d started moving, slowly, towards Chau’s group on Chuck’s side of the room.  Chuck began moving towards Slattern, keeping his eyes fixed on him.

“You’re sure?” Tendo asked.

“I’m sure.”

“Eyes on Slattern recognized,” Tendo replied.

“Moving to intercept.”  Chuck started moving faster, ducking around guests at the gala so he wouldn’t lose sight of Slattern.

He was maybe 5 feet away when Slattern turned and spotted him.  Slattern’s eyes narrowed and Chuck grit his teeth.  Then, Slattern turned and started walking towards the American Portraiture hallway.  Chuck followed him, keeping far enough back that he’d have enough space to fight if he needed to, but not so far that someone could go between them.

They made it past the crowds, and into the empty gallery space.

“You’re one of those PPDC grunts, then?” Slattern sneered, turning to face him.

“You’re the leader of the Kaiju,” Chuck answered.  Slattern reached into his jacket, and Chuck drew his gun quickly, pointing it at Slattern.

“I’m not drawing a weapon on a _police officer_ ,” Slattern said, taking his hand out, a small vial of clear liquid clenched in his hand.

“The poison.”

“You guys are calling it Kaiju Blue, right?” he asked, holding up the vial and grinning.  “That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard for a poison.  I shouldn’t be surprised, though, considering you named your unit the _Partnership Preventing Dynamic Crime_.  What does that even mean?”

“It means we destroy people like you,” Chuck told him, holding his gun steady, pointing at Slattern’s chest.

“Oh, you’re not going to destroy me.”

“Put the vial down on the ground right now,” Chuck ordered.

“And if I don’t?”

“I shoot.”

Slattern threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing amongst the paintings.  “No you won’t!  You need me alive, because I have information you want.”

“We already have one of your second-in-commands.”

“Oh, he won’t tell you anything.”  Slattern considered the vial for a moment, then pulled the stopper.

“What are you doing?” Chuck exclaimed, shifting his grip on his gun.  “You’re going to kill both of us!”

“No, I won’t kill _both_ of us.”

“Still in pursuit of Scunner,” Came Raleigh’s voice through the earpiece Chuck had.  His breathing was labored, and his voice sounded pained.  “He’s looped back to American Portraits.”

Chuck tensed, whipping his head to the side to see Scunner sprinting down the gallery towards them a gun in his right hand, Raleigh close behind them, a trail of blood left behind by Raleigh’s right leg.

The first rule in Mission Operations in the PPDC Investigating Procedure Manual was to prevent the taking of hostages if at all possible.  The second was to protect civilians at all costs.

Chuck turned when Scunner was 15 feet away, taking a second to focus on Scunner, and then another second to fire, the bullet hitting him square in the center of the forehead and sending him crashing to the floor.  Raleigh paused for a moment out of shock, but Slattern didn’t.  He started towards Raleigh, and Chuck knew he was too close and at too awkward an angle to shoot.

When Chuck had first signed up for the Metro PD after his college graduation, he’d been nervous about people relying on his analysis to save their own and other people’s lives.  He hadn’t thought he’d be able to help anyone.  His dad had only had one word of advice, the same advice he’d been giving Chuck for 21 years before then:

 _If you have a shot, then you take it_.

Chuck launched himself at Slattern just as Mako rounded the corner at the end of the gallery.  Slattern turned just before Chuck had his arms locked around him, the uncapped vial pressed between their chests as they fell.  Slattern twisted them, forcing Chuck under him before they crashed into the floor, sending the contents of the vial spilling over him.  A few drops flew onto Slattern, but almost half of the vial poured directly onto Chuck’s chest.

He screamed, his grip on Slattern falling away as searing pain exploded all over his chest.  He tried to scrabble at the front of his shirt to pull it off, but it only brought his fingers into contact with the Kaiju Blue, making them burn as well.

Slattern pushed himself off of Chuck, still holding the half-full vial tightly.

“You ruled out dermal administration, you imbecile.  I told you you couldn’t destroy me,” he hissed, levering himself to his feet.  Just in time for a shot to ring out, and a bullet to go through his chest, dropping him to the ground again.

Chuck whimpered, his back arching off the ground and his body tensing.

Then Raleigh was next to him, reaching down to undo Chuck’s shirt.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” Chuck managed to say, trying to move away from Raleigh but not succeeding.  “I’ve got Kaiju Blue all over me.”

“That’s why we need to get your shirt off!” Raleigh replied angrily, reaching again.

“And you’ll get poisoned too,” Chuck panted, each breath harder to drag in.

“Raleigh, step away from him,” Mako ordered, stopping two steps behind Raleigh, her gun in hand.

“No,” he yelled at her, then turned back to Chuck, leaning as close as he could without touching him.  Much softer, he said, “Your eyes are turning blue.”

Chuck tried to speak and couldn’t.  He tried to nod, but he couldn’t do more than a tiny jerk of his head.

His eyes were frozen open, staring up at Raleigh’s face.  He was crying, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.  It took a moment for Chuck to realize he was crying, too.

Then, Tendo’s voice came over the comm system.  “Newt’s running in now.  Where should he bring the antidote?”

“American portraits,” Mako ordered quickly, speaking into her small microphone.  “Chuck’s been poisoned.  Send paramedics too.”

“He’s on his way,” Tendo replied, trying to sound calm, but all of them could tell he wasn’t.

“Newt’s coming with the antidote.”

 _I know, you idiot,_ Chuck wanted to respond.  It was getting harder to breath.

“He’ll be here in a second, just hold on, okay?  It’ll make you better, just hold on…”

“Don’t leave us,” Mako said abruptly.  Even though Chuck couldn’t see her, he could hear that she was crying.  After their first fight he’d promised he’d never make her cry again.  Looks like he’d broken that one.

 _I’m trying_ , he wanted to say.  _It’s hard_.  _Tell my dad I love him.  Tell him I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry._   _I love you_.

“Move, move, move!” Newt shouted, and Chuck could hear his footsteps as he ran towards them.Raleigh didn’t even look up, just slid back an inch and kept staring at Chuck’s face, looking more miserable than Chuck thought a person could be.

Chuck tried to smile at him, to reassure him, but he couldn’t move anything.  He couldn’t breathe.  And then everything was black.


	9. Epilogue

Chuck had always figured, when he thought about it at all, that heaven would have much less beeping.  That, really, was what clued him in the fact that he wasn’t actually dead.

It took him a few tries to get his eyes open, and as soon as he did, he wished that he hadn’t.  The fluorescent lights were blinding, and he groaned low in his throat at the discomfort.  But then something was blocking the lights, and Chuck never wanted to close his eyes again.

Raleigh smiled down at him, his eyes soft and tired.  “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Chuck replied quietly.  “Newt made it in time, then.”

“You held on long enough for him to make it,” Raleigh corrected, cupping Chuck’s face.  “I’m so…”

“I know.”  Chuck didn’t need to wait for Raleigh to figure out the right adjective.  He knew what he meant.

“Your dad should be back in a minute,” Raleigh told him, his thumb rubbing over Chuck’s cheek.  “He went to get some coffee.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days,” Raleigh replied.  “Doctors thought it would be longer before you woke up.”

“Have you and Dad been here the whole time?” Chuck asked, trying to raise an eyebrow.

“Of course we have,” Raleigh said, smiling wider.  “We took turns sleeping, just in case you woke up.”

Chuck sighed.  “That was stupid.  You two need to take care of yourselves.”

“See?  That’s why we need you around.  We get stupid when you’re not here to set us straight.”

“You’re always stupid,” Chuck muttered, making Raleigh laugh quietly.  “You’re being stupid now, since you haven’t kissed me yet.”

Raleigh grinned and leaned in, kissing him softly.  Chuck kissed back, managing to move a hand just enough to hook his fingers in the hem of Raleigh’s sweater.

Raleigh pulled back, and Chuck frowned at him.  “I wasn’t done with you.”

“Too bad,” Herc said from the doorway, holding a tray with two coffee cups in his right hand, the left arm in a sling.  Chuck looked past Raleigh, grinning at him.

“Dad!”

“How’re you feeling?” Herc asked, setting the coffee cups down and then coming up next to Raleigh.

“Like I was poisoned and then asleep for two days.”

Herc chuckled softly.  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“What happened at the gala?  After I passed out, I mean.”

“Chau’s alive,” Herc told him.  “We were right, that there weren’t any lower-level members there.  Raiju’s cooperating, so we’re tracking all of them down, as well as the connections the Kaiju had with other organizations.  Scunner and Slattern are both dead.”

Chuck nodded.  “I expected that.”  He flicked his eyes to Herc’s left arm.  “And you?”

“Cracked my collarbone,” Herc replied, with a small shake of the head.  “Fell wrong.  Ridiculous.”

“And everyone else is okay?”

“Everyone’s good,” Raleigh assured him.  “And the doctors said you should be fine.  Apparently the knife Leatherback used on you had an earlier, barely effective batch of Kaiju Blue on it, but the antidote cleared that up, too.  Just… your scleras are still a bit blue.  And there’re some scars.”

Chuck nodded, focusing on Raleigh’s face.  “I made it, though.”

“You did more than make it,” Herc said.  “Metro PD’s awarding you a Medal of Honor and a Medal of Valor.”

Chuck’s eyes widened.  “What?  What for?”

“You poisoned yourself, not knowing if there would be an antidote in time, to save the Mayor and how many other people the Kaiju were going to kill,” Herc reminded him.  “You brought down a criminal organization.”

“It wasn’t like I did it by myself,” Chuck protested.

“Mako’s getting a Medal of Valor, too,” Raleigh told him.  “She doesn’t think she deserves it, either.”

Chuck scowled at him.   “We were just doing our job.”

“Shut up and accept the damn medals,” Herc told him, but he was grinning.  Chuck just sighed.

Raleigh swooped in and kissed him again, chuckling against his lips.  “Don’t ever change.”

“If almost dying doesn’t do it, I don’t think anything will,” Chuck replied, leaning up to kiss Raleigh again.

“I’ll let everyone know you’re awake,” Herc said, going to pick up his coffee again.  Chuck didn’t move away from Raleigh, until Raleigh pulled back too far for Chuck to reach him.

“Once you’re better, we’re breaking out those handcuffs,” Raleigh told him, his eyes bright.

“As long as I’m handcuffed to a bed instead of that fucking chair, I’m all for it.”

“You could have waited until I was out of the room, at least,” Herc grunted, walking quickly out of the room.  Raleigh and Chuck laughed, only stopping to kiss every few seconds.  Their laughs bounced around the room and into the hallway through the wide open door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can talk about this fic/research/planning/canon parallels/back stories (SO MUCH BACK STORY) for literally forever so pls any questions/comments/etc. are welcome and appreciated!
> 
> i'm not ready to leave this 'verse yet.

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by my lovely friend Brittles
> 
> will be cross-posted to tumblr (somethingnerdythiswaycomes.tumblr.com) (COME TALK TO ME ABOUT PACIFIC RIM)
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> SPOILER-Y TAGS BELOW!!!!  
> additional tags: drug dealing, coercion, reference to torture through burning, poison, attempted assassination


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